#still not done with this damn book

[hay-bails]

syl and kal hours <3

[cautiously0ptimistic]

Do you even know whether you're running toward or away from something anymore? I guess it's all just running, all the same.

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[deoidesign]

I met the me who made different choices

[why-the-heck-not]

26.08.23, saturday

today was what we like to call "productive procrastination" aka the rest of my life is in shambles but I now have a clean kitchen

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

Flicked back through my a-level copy of Frankenstein recently - shoutout to 16 year old me for the only annotations in the entire section where Victor made the Creature being ‘plosives’ ‘imago dei’ and ‘ironic, he’s sexist’. I stand by all of those statements.

[i-dreamed-i-had-a-son]

“because he never accepts that it's never been about righteousness--it's about repentance.” except javert killing himself IS repentance.

well, it’s like 12 different things, because bro had gone days without sleeping and very little food and water and he already had low self-worth and kept asking the amis to kill him and just assumed he was going to die AND THEN valjean upended his understanding of the world and morality. he was really going through it & there are a lot of overlapping reasons for why he jumps into the seine.

but javert is like Number One Most Responsible guy in the whole story. taking responsibility is his Thing (forever bitter the musical doesn’t include the punish me monsieur le maire scene). how else, in his derailment, could he atone for his conceived misdeeds other than by handing in his resignation to god? in the brick he had already left a note urging his superiors to treat convicts at toulon better, which is another step in his repentance (and another crime the musical commits by not including it). jumping into the seine was another step.

honestly a lot of ppl who like the book think the musical was dead wrong to exclude him from the big heaven group sing, because it COMPLETELY undermines the themes of forgiveness and compassion threaded throughout les mis. like the musical was simply wrong lol.

This is helpful context! I am still finishing the brick, although I have fully read the abridged version, and that detail about the letter wasn't included, so I didn't know that occurred! (And thank you for the message--this is a long response but I'd love to hear more of your thoughts!)

I agree that Javert is certainly deeply distraught and remorseful; like you mentioned, his worldview is literally falling apart, and his actions reflect his mental state. But his death isn't really repentance--in the sense that it's not what God would have wanted. To me it reads like a Judas situation: a desperate realization of a huge mistake, and doing the only thing you think can make it right, namely, ending it all. That's the just punishment for someone so wrong, isn't it?

But true repentance, meaning the repentance that the Lord desires, is about changing your ways, not "paying a price." Had Javert really understood the beauty of Valjean's mercy (an image of Christ's, just as the bishop's undeserved mercy was to Valjean himself), rather than killing himself, he would have lived to also become "an honest man"--in heart. One who could forgive and understand forgiveness, for himself as well as others. One who could recognize that he is not The Law, that he can fall, but that he can also be "brought to the light." One who could accept that men like Valjean, and men like himself, CAN change, and be changed.

It's tragic to me because so much of "Stars," and his character in the book as well as the musical, is about wanting to be righteous, to rise above his birth and the sinfulness he associates it with. It's about wanting to please the Lord by his actions. But in his end, he shows he never understood what God really wanted from him, and that's where my original phrase comes in: not righteousness, but repentance. To live, and face the man you were, knowing it's no longer the man you are. That it's never been about what you've done or can do, but about what's been done for you. That's the Gospel that he could never fully accept.

To use another example you mentioned, that misunderstanding drives why he asks the Mayor (Valjean) to punish him--in his worldview, mercy is unjust, or at the very least, unfair. Evil must be punished; "those who fall like Lucifer fell" receive "the sword." But "as it is written," God "desires mercy, not sacrifice" (Matthew 9:13). God would have wanted Javert to live, and Javert couldn't see that, and that's why it's devastating to me. In his misunderstanding of the heart of God, he misses what would have set him free from the chains of sin he's always been trying to escape.

That's why he's contrasted with Valjean, who (though he carries guilt about his past till the end of his life) is eventually able to face it and confess what he had done to those he loves. He knew there was mercy to be found, if only it was asked for. Javert was too blinded by pride and shame to realize it, and so, while broken, he never was able to truly repent.

For that, you must go on.

[splookiee]

IM GONNA CRY MY BAGGINSHIELD OBSESSION IS SLOWLY SLIPPING AWAYYY

[necrotic-nephilim]

your Kon post was sooooo good, like yes the core four are queer platonic, however Kon is hypersexual enough to have made out with (or more) everyone in young justice at least once, yes, including the non-corporal Greta don’t ask me how that worked

I love all of these posts!!! how many of these ask game things do you have in your inbox??

thank you so much!! and i ABSOLUTELY agree with you on hypersexual Kon (truly i just adore characters with grooming/rape trauma like Kon coping through the lense of hypersexuality) and even if YJ is queerplatonic, Kon has made his way through most of them. including Greta. he's creative he'd find a way. probably involving TTK. bc TTK in sex is a thought i have daily. endless potential for using it to basically turn someone's body into a living fleshlight he can manipulate from the inside out- specifically have a TimKonBart idea in my head about that where Kon coaches Bart through sex, since Bart is a speedster with a bonkers refractory period who struggles to feel satisfied, and Tim is caught between them getting used to get Bart off with Kon using TTK to manipulate Tim's body. fun times. fun ideas.

currently, i have one more ask game ask in my inbox (tho always feel free to send more!) that's BruJay focused. though i *do* also have a couple other asks that are just ideas i pan to use as prompts for full fics. just haven't gotten to those yet bc i'm currently busy with packing to move states so. i have *not* had the time to write i wish i had. i will not reveal too much but one involves JayTim fucking during the Titans Tower incident, another is JayTim with animal traits leading to porn, and then another is Tim/Kon/Jon with incest kink stuff. so! i have many things planned, i just need to settle into my new place, however long that takes.

[plumbley-bee]

Me??? Attatching myself to a dnd character so much that I got a tattoo in honor of her after a week into me quitting smoking??? Because she inspires me to live and to heal and to be anything I choose to be????

Pshhhh, nah. Couldn't be me.

[sweetreveriee]

the 100 started off so good and now im so disappointed

[vodkacheesefries]

The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle is so queer coded and I don't know if it was intentional or not but my entire childhood suddenly makes sense now lmao

The whole trial Jaggery says she's "unnatural" and later he tells her he despises her for it. She insists it is unusual, and not unnatural, as there is a difference but he INSISTS that everything about her is unnatural; how she's a girl who sails, who cut her hair, who wears sailor's clothing, etc. She has become his scapegoat because she is unnatural and different and he is determined to make her take the fall for it.

[afklancelot]

every few days house of leaves subreddit has someone post on there bout how they hate Johnny Truant and think his parts are unnecessary to House of Leaves and at least part of the time they admit to not reading the full book yet

[silvreflamess]

i think nesta definitely knew that that guy she was trying to get to marry her while she was human idr his name idc and his father were abusive but she was raised with low expectations regarding marriage anyway and her only purpose as the eldest sister was to marry into a financially well off family to ensure her sisters’ futures and it didn’t matter how she was treated as long as she made that happen

[essektheylyss]

The Damn Book is up to 10k edited which is about 10% which is GREAT, but even more importantly, I have RESTRUCTURED THE FUCKER which means I should be able to proceed a lot more clearly.

[mosscrab]

mgsv has so many literary references to books i have essays abt it kind of makes me.

[emiliosandozsequence]

realizing i might have been right the first time and i'm might have to wait to read the carnivorous lamb until after i'm done with the legend trilogy